Lodi's Best Kept Secret, Poured Small
Downtown Lodi · Lodi · Wine Tasting Room · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed by the RagingWine Tasting Desk · July 17, 2026
RagingWine reviewed Estate Crush’s wine list and gave it The Wild Card — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
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Wingman Metrics
Walking into Estate Crush feels like stumbling into a winemaker's living room — unpretentious, focused, and quietly confident. The list is tight at 88 wines but every bottle is made on-site or sourced from small Lodi growers you've almost certainly never heard of. This is not a place trying to impress you with Napa name drops.
Estate Crush runs a cooperative urban winery model, which means the wines here are genuinely small-lot and locally made — not curated imports or regional safe bets. The portfolio leans Lodi hard, with standout labels like Stellina, Little Star, and Tall House Vineyards sharing space with the Estate Crush house range. The Cinsaut from Bechthold Vineyard is the kind of thing you'd find on a natural wine bar list in San Francisco at three times the price. The gaps are real — if you want Burgundy or a broad international sweep, you're in the wrong room — but that's the point.
Sixteen by-the-glass options is a strong showing for a tasting room of this size, and the range moves from the Chiara Sparkling Moscato to old vine Zinfandels and a Touriga Nacional dessert wine. The list reads like a tour of what Lodi can actually do beyond the bulk wine reputation. We'd love to see more rotation, but what's here is legitimately interesting.
2019 Cinsaut (Bechthold Vineyard) — $26
Cinsaut from one of Lodi's oldest certified organic vineyards at $26 a bottle is a genuine steal. This grape is having a serious moment nationally and anywhere else you'd pay double for the story alone.
Estate Crush 2020 Touriga Nacional Dessert Wine
Most people skip dessert wines on a tasting room list and head straight for the Zin. Don't. Touriga Nacional is a rare find outside Portugal, and a $30 dessert pour from a small Lodi producer is the kind of left-field discovery that makes wine fun again.
Chiara 2023 Sparkling Moscato
At $26 the price is fine, but if you're making the trip to a winery specializing in old vine Lodi reds and obscure Portuguese varietals, drinking a sparkling Moscato feels like ordering chicken fingers at a sushi counter. Save the slot for something weirder.
Stellina 2017 Old Vine Zinfandel + Charcuterie board
Old vine Lodi Zinfandel with a cured meat board is the tasting room move that never fails — the wine's dark fruit and spice cut through the fat in all the right ways, and at $32 you're not sweating the decision.
🎲 The Bottom Line
Estate Crush is the rare tasting room where the list actually reflects a point of view — Lodi varietals you won't find anywhere else, honest prices, and zero pretension. If you're driving through the Central Valley and think you know what Lodi wine is, stop here and reconsider.
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